Toronto Explores Municipal Voting for Non-Citizens

February 20th, 2013

Last month, Toronto City Council re-opened a discussion on the issue of municipal voting by non-citizens, joining cities like Dublin and Oslo where all residents have the right to cast their ballot at the local level and are actively encouraged to vote.

Extending voter rights is not a new idea. Fifteen European Union countries, such as Belgium, Denmark, Spain and the UK, permit EU and third-country nationals to vote in local or regional elections. New Zealand gives legal immigrants full voting rights in local and national elections after one year of residency.

“What exactly does Toronto (one of the world’s great immigrant cities) gain by preventing hundreds of thousands of immigrant residents from voting on municipal election day? We certainly know what is lost. A few years back, while visiting Toronto, Dublin’s Mayor Michael Conaghan was asked how immigrants there feel about being able to vote in that city’s elections before they become citizens of Ireland. He replied: “They like the idea of being asked for their vote. They feel a part of the city, and I think that’s important…I suppose they feel they’re not being dismissed.””